More big news

Another preacher went on vacation this summer. He ministered to the unfortunate heathen in England. It was hot and there was a lot of old stuff. Just thought everyone in Quincy would want to know.

On a brighter note, the features on Tuesday were all good.

Zinga vs. Hare, part 3: The AP story reporting the candidates' first debate gives a balanced view of the event. Too bad we can't watch it till Friday--I want to hear the chain of logic the runs from voting for Phil Hare to the impeachment of George Bush. Sounds like a Too-Much-Coffee Man cartoon to me. I would also like to see if the story reflects the entire debate. If it does, that's too bad, because the country's No. 1 issue at the moment--the war in Iraq--gets one phrase at the absolute end of the story. If the candidates didn't come to grips with that issue, shame on them.

Sunday, September 17

Front page article on the impact of megachurches on other Quincy churches was pretty good. Didn't go as deep as I would have liked, but what can you expect? At least it wasn't completely the usual cheerleading.

Friday's lead headline was a bit misleading. "Study: River locks must be modernized" is true as far as it goes, but you have to recognize that the "study" was created by a group with powerful economic interests in promoting the idea of enlarging the locks. The bias fits all too well with the Herald-Whig's build-build-build mentality.

Politicians say the darndest things!

Especially when the news media don't call them on it. Andrea Zinga stopped by the fire station (if I were a firefighter, I would resent the nation's politicians showing up at fire stations all over the U.S. on 9/11, then never appearing again) to tell us, quote, "she has been astonished to hear several politicians talk about withdrawing from the fight with Al-Qaeda..."

Yeah, I hear that a lot these days. Why, just yesterday, I heard.........no, maybe it was..........

Come to think of it, I have never heard anyone--politician or not--suggest such a thing. And neither has Andrea Zinga. It's the journalist's job to say, "Ms. Zinga, please name a politician you heard talking about withdrawing from the fight with Al-Qaeda, and when you heard this remark." Otherwise inanities flourish.

"Zinga said that many people want to coddle the enemy." Name one, please. And to top herself, she tossed out an offhanded remark about how she thought that profiling isn't such a bad thing.......guaranteed to win her votes with the black citizens of Quincy, who get stopped for traffic and arrested at a much higher rate than whites. Once again, however, the story merely reports the remark and doesn't press her for explanation. She repeated the comment later in the day at the Springfield fire house, touching off criticism that got her into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the following morning......but not in the Herald-Whig the following afternoon!

If the news media don't hold these candidates accountable, this campaign is going to be depressingly predictable. Phil Hare will make a public hanging of oil company executives his major campaign platform, and Andrea Zinga will campaign on a pledge to personally waterboard Islamic fascists.

Updated score: Zinga 37 inches, two photos; Hare 16 inches, one photo.

Small market journalism

The Herald-Whig did a good job this Sunday.....solid reporting on the Hannibal 911 controversy. The Whig's seven-day-a-week publication schedule enabled it to eclipse the Hannibal Courier-Post on this story completely. The C-P does the best it can, but with half the staff and a missing publication day, it just gets beat sometimes.

Political news was solid, including the usual sharp analysis from the syndicated Capitol Fax column. Doug Wilson usually has something insightful to say on local politics. The Whig even managed to push its preacher-takes-a-vacation story to its proper spot on the back pages. When the day comes that other nonprofit radio stations get the same amount of news play as the Bruce-Rice-needs-more-money stories that populate the Herald-Whig, I will conclude that the Whig is being objective in its coverage. Don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

Sunday, September 3

Ordinarily I complain when the Herald-Whig runs a lot of wire service copy.....isn't providing local news what a local newspaper is for? But today the H-W made an excellent decision to fill two pages of the front section with AP stories about the 5-year anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. It brought us all back home....and back to a genuine consideration of what is at stake in the world today.

Followed by an equally important story on the front of the City/County section.....26 column inches and a huge photo.....kids went to church camp this summer!! Wow!! How important!!

On the sports section, Don O'Brien departed from the typical root-for-the-home-team-at-all-costs mode of H-W sports to pose some rather veiled criticism of how the QU football program is being run. Interesting, if a bit cryptic.

Zinga v. Hare, part 2

Finally another news story about the Congressional race. Phil Hare shows up somewhere in Quincy (the story doesn't say....you have to find out from the photo caption that it was the Machinists Lodge) for a fundraiser and gets in the paper at last.

Same complaint as from the earlier post.....the story lets Hare set the agenda. It's an odd story all the way around......the first three paragraphs are about how people haven't heard of him yet. Then three paragraphs about how fundraising is going and the scheduling of debates. Finally, starting in paragraph 7, we get to hear Hare's view on an issue.........that affects Galesburg. End with a bunch of random general comments, and you've got something that is almost completely unilluminating.

Back to the debate schedule: the story says that "presumably"......(who's doing the presuming here?) the debate will be in Macomb, Champaign and the Quad Cities. Which of these things is not like the others? Could it be Champaign, which is not in the 17th District?

Updated score: Zinga, 21 inches, 1 photo; Hare, 16 inches, 1 photo. Neither photo is the least bit flattering.